The present invention relates to a vehicle door lock and particularly to a vehicle door lock enabling operating force from an outside handle on a door to be transmitted to a latching mechanism keeping the door closed via an operating mechanism inside the windowpane of the door.
As disclosed in JP63-47480A and US2005/0236847A1, in a vehicle door lock, it is necessary to transmit operating force from an outside handle disposed outside a windowpane in a door to an operating mechanism disposed inside the windowpane in the door. So, the outside handle and operating mechanism are connected to each other via an operating force transmitting member such as a rod or a cable and an intermediate lever which goes around the lower or front end of the windowpane.
However, in the door lock disclosed in JP63-47480A, the intermediate lever for allowing operating force of the door to go around the lower end of the windowpane is pivotally mounted to the bottom of the door to increase the number of parts and accessories and the number of steps for assembling it to the door, which is disadvantageous.
In US2005/0236847A1, a cable for transmitting operating force from the outside handle is curved from an outer position of the windowpane to an inner position and coupled to the intermediate lever pivotally mounted to a casing for a latching mechanism to decrease operating-force transmitting efficiency of the curved cable and to increase the number of steps for arranging the cable within the door, which is disadvantageous.